Our Dual Innovation approach and key ideas of “Scaling-Up Corporate Startups” (co-authored by Frank Mattes and me) were recently featured at the InnoUpdate vlog, run by Maarten Korz. Maarten characterizes Dual Innovation as Ambidexterity 2.0 – which aptly hits the spot. Check out his great video and the original InnoUpdate post ..read more

From frequent discussions and readings I have come to realize the following: Agility and Ambidexterity can be considered two distinct organizational capabilities and design aspects for future-proof companies (-to-be) that often get mixed up or even confused: Agility: Organizational capability of dealing with uncertainty and adapting a company’s core business to (rapid) changes in the market environment. Ambidexterity: Organizational capability of developing new business (Exploration) while running existing ones (Exploitation). Both capabilities may exhibit some overlap, yet can basically be co ..read more

PWC’s strategy consulting arm Strategy& recently surveyed 50 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) across Germany, Switzerland and Austria (with additional samples from the US, Japan and the Netherlands). They found that the majority of the surveyed companies have been facing a Scaling-Up Problem: barely 10% of were managing to grow revenue from digital initiatives to more than 5% of group revenue. 40% saw no significant impact from digital innovation. One main reason for this lack of impact: Digital Innovation Units (DIUs) that were set up and dedicated by th ..read more

Recently, Karolin Frankenberger from University of St. Gallen gave a worthwile presentation, one slide of which neatly illustrates why Dual Innovation is essential nowadays: Digitally transforming a company calls for true ambidexterity, i.e. simultaneously succeeding on the S-curve of today’s business model AND that of the future business model which is supposed to eventually supersede the existing one. This dual approach to business model innovation is most likely the greatest challenge companies’ CEOs are facing these days. In their work, Frankenberger et al. refer to this as The Transformer ..read more

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One issue has been on my mind for quite some time. Let me share with you a key learning from my innovation work in and with diverse companies over the years. It can be termed pretty catchy as: Window of Corporate Opportunity. In brief, this notion can be delineated as follows: Sustainable, effective and impactful corporate innovation is all about right timing and organizational readiness. What does this mean? If the perceived threat or presure to change is too low, corporate inertia prevails, little to no sense of urgency is noticeable and most of the innovation activities sadly end up ..read more

Once in a while you run into ideas which are refreshingly thought-provoking, while at the same time seeming to be resonating with your own view. This holds for the key statements in “Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries”, a worthwile new book by theoretical physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall. Countering a famous saying, he suggests: Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Structure eats culture for lunch. What does he exactly mean by that? Bahcall explains: To understand what I mean by structure vs. culture, let’s start with ..read more

A new research report from Accenture, titled “Rethink, Reinvent, Realize. How to successfully scale digital innovation to drive growth” is hot off the press. It highlights the following key takeaways: Only 22% of large organizations are successfully scaling digital innovation proof of concepts (PoCs) to drive growth. Those ‘Champions’ enjoy up to 9.9% return on digital investments (RODI). ‘Champions’ approach the organizational challenges associated with innovation very differently to their peers. They are more strategic in their approach, identifying the value they want to achieve and reco ..read more